CQ ranking

[Hugo Koblet]

It's great to see so much discussion going on - we will be a lot wiser at the end of year, but it will be interesting to see who had the strategy right.

I've made a few small changes to various teams that needed change (Spare Tyre had 3 points too many, AAC1983 had send me some changes right after he first send me his team which I had forgotten) but a few still needs adjustment.

January 7 will be the date on which I will do the changes myself because that is the day the race calender starts.

If a team exceeds 7500 points I will delete the rider with points closest to but above the number of points the team exceeds the limit.

If a team has more than 33 riders I will just delete riders last on the list untill the team reaches 33 riders.

 

[Handbrake]

I think if anyone doubles their score you should feel confident to win as it is unlikely all of your riders will perform and not get injured, suspended or compete with one another for points you were banking on them to gain.

For those who thinks it should be easy to double your score would it also be easy for you to nominate 33 riders worth 15,000 points in 2010 who will only achieve 7,500 points in 2011 (assuming Contador rides the full year)??

 

[ingsve]

I think if anyone doubles their score you should feel confident to win as it is unlikely all of your riders will perform and not get injured, suspended or compete with one another for points you were banking on them to gain.

For those who thinks it should be easy to double your score would it also be easy for you to nominate 33 riders worth 15,000 points in 2010 who will only achieve 7,500 points in 2011 (assuming Contador rides the full year)??

It's easier to predict when someone will do better than the year before than it is to predict that someone will have a bad year. You can find riders that have a very high potential but that had a bad year due to injuries etc which made them have a year below their normal standard. With those riders all you need to do is have a reasonable expectation that they will be back to their normal level. There is no equivalent way of guessing that someone will have an off year unless you simply pick riders like Morenhout who is retiring.

No one is saying it will be easy to double the score but since most people will be picking riders with a reasonable chance of improving. and improving quite a lot at that. then pure chance would suggest that the ones that get lucky will manage to double their score.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

1
But the point is for a 40% increase Gesink will have to have as good a season as Rodriguez did this year. A perfect season. Look at what purito had to do to achieve that.

6th Paris Nice with 4 top 5 finishes and 4th points classification

WINNER Vuelta Catalunia including 2 podiums and 4 days in leaders jersey

3rd place Vuelta Pais Vasco including a stage a podium and 4th in points

WINNER GP miguel Indurain

2nd La Fleche Wallone

9th Tour de Suisse including a podium

WINNER stage into Mende at the Tour

Podium stage into Tourmalet, 5th stage into AX 3 Domainx

8th Overall at the Grandady of them all,

5th Classica San Sebastian.

4th overall Vuelta a Espana

4th Points classification Vuelta a Espana

4th Mountains classification Vuelta a Espana

WINNER Pena Cabanga stage (aka Anton crash stage) at Vuelta a Espana

3rd stage into Bola del Mundo, 2nd stage into Malaga, 4th stage to Jaen, 4th Alto de Cotobello, 5th Xorret de Cati Vuelta a Espana.

Leader of Vuelta a Espana 2 days.


You see Gesink having that kind of season? I dont and i am a founding father of the Dutch mafia.

2
As for doubling ones score and how many cab achieve this, it was ingsve (on this thread we do sound like the pretty much the same person though ) who pointed out that last season a 7500 team could have tripled their score for 23000.

Looking at the nice little row Hugo gave us which shows what our teams would get in 2009 points, only tow people manage to double their score (both fall into the catergory i outlined in a previous post of having 5 particular riders) though a few came mighty close.

However that doesnt take into account that many popular picks - CVV, Ballan, Schumacher, Ricco didnt have the greatest 09 either. Other popular riders - Duarte, Rujano, Blanco, dont do much europe but will this year so their 09 scores are probably lower.
Similar situation with the younger riders who had poor 09 scores but will improve - Uran, Phinney, Guarnieri, madrazo etc.

So taking this into account i will make an (educated?) guess that nobody will triple their score, one or two people might get above 20 000, 10 people will double and 78 out of 87 people will end up on a + (so only a handful will lose points overall).

It would be interesting to see if ingsve agrees with me on this too or if he would adjust those figures slightly.

Also why arent more of you telling us who you think the favourites are

maybe some posters are not obsessed with winning, and find it more enjoyable to have a team of riders they truly like I can confidently say for the most part I picked riders I like over the possibly more 'logical' picks. AT the same time, I see potential in some of the guys I like, and therefore was happy with my choice. I'm happy with my tactics.

As for Gesink, people whom pick him obviously have faith in him, you doubting his ability to better this year is rather irrelevant. I'm confident he can do better...
-He should get a similar result at the tour.
- + the vuelta, his ability to do a 2nd GT is to be seen.
-Ardennes campaign was ruined with illness this year.
-Like youngest pointed out, most stage races he enters he is competitive, progress should only strengthen this. Can definitely better his season in this regard.
-Injuries/unfortunate circumstances again affected his season... Basques, Lombardy etc...

He had a good season, but a lot of bad luck (or bad bike handling... ) affected what could have been an even better season. I see no reason why he can't better this season, in fact I have expectations that he will indeed better 10'... Oh noez I must be a fanboy ey!!

Also why arent more of you telling us who you think the favourites are

truth be told I haven't even looked at any of the other teams yet.

 

[auscyclefan94]

maybe some posters are not obsessed with winning, and find it more enjoyable to have a team of riders they truly like I can confidently say for the most part I picked riders I like over the possibly more 'logical' picks. AT the same time, I see potential in some of the guys I like, and therefore was happy with my choice. I'm happy with my tactics.

As for Gesink, people whom pick him obviously have faith in him, you doubting his ability to better this year is rather irrelevant. I'm confident he can do better...
-He should get a similar result at the tour.
- + the vuelta, his ability to do a 2nd GT is to be seen.
-Ardennes campaign was ruined with illness this year.
-Like youngest pointed out, most stage races he enters he is competitive, progress should only strengthen this. Can definitely better his season in this regard.
-Injuries/unfortunate circumstances again affected his season... Basques, Lombardy etc...

He had a good season, but a lot of bad luck (or bad bike handling... ) affected what could have been an even better season. I see no reason why he can't better this season, in fact I have expectations that he will indeed better 10'... Oh noez I must be a fanboy ey!!

Welcome to the club! I am still the king of the fanboys tho!

 

[The Hitch]

It's great to see so much discussion going on - we will be a lot wiser at the end of year, but it will be interesting to see who had the strategy right.

But its more fun right now when we dont know and are speculating. And during the season of course. Im guessing a lot of people will comment their happyness in race threads when a rare rider they picked podiums a stage or something. Which is good because I dont usually care about who comes 4th or 5th on the stage, though i will now.

But as they say the catch is more fun than the kill. Once we know who wins it wont be as fun. Especially since like with the Giro and Tour threads, ACF will be long gone from this thread by October

IMO the winner will be the somebody with 33 mostly unique but mediocre riders. It will not be me, thats for sure because I have only 27 riders and some of them are big guns that will be having hard time even scoring the same points but I took them anyway.

We should have some big penalties for busted dopers. How about -5000 points?

Thats what ive been arguing from the start. Ironically i only have 32 though as Efimkin has retired

I think if anyone doubles their score you should feel confident to win as it is unlikely all of your riders will perform and not get injured, suspended or compete with one another for points you were banking on them to gain.

For those who thinks it should be easy to double your score would it also be easy for you to nominate 33 riders worth 15,000 points in 2010 who will only achieve 7,500 points in 2011 (assuming Contador rides the full year)??

No one sais its easy to double your score. But there are 88 entries and saying that about 10 might double their score is saying that around 11% will double their score.

And it would be more difficult to do the reverse as there is the doping and injury thing. A lot of us chose dopers like Pellizoti, Schumacher and injuries like CVV and everyone chose Haussler.
We know Haussler was injured last year and likely will have a big increase in his points. We dont know who will be injured next year and have a big decrease in his points.

maybe some posters are not obsessed with winning, and find it more enjoyable to have a team of riders they truly like

Yes but we were responding to posts saying that Gesink is a great pick competition wise and that he can get +40%, which i think is highly unlikely.

As for Gesink, people whom pick him obviously have faith in him, you doubting his ability to better this year is rather irrelevant. I'm confident he can do better...

Im not doubting his ability to improve, im doubting his ability to be on peak form all year, defend all his winnings and get a lot more, and come top 3 overall in CQ rankings (where he will be if he has that season).

Bare in mind also that if he were to improve too much, his cq rankings might suffer as he might win the tour and ease up in other races.

I ended up doing the top 100 in the 2010 ranking. My predictions can be seen here:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tZe8PNST6gsxpzg5V6Mtmmg&authkey=CMfU_MIC&hl=sv#gid=0

Going below the top 100 would have been a total crapshoot since a 10% margin of error gives a very small window to hit and points can fluctuate a lot at that level based on very small changes in race outcome.

A wild guess would be that I could perhaps hit 20-30% of riders within the given window but that too us perhaps a little optimistic.

Wow that was quick. From what i see reasonable predictions, though ill look through them and see if i disagree with some.

 

[will10]

Hi HK
Just wondering how often points updates will be posted here? Monthly or after every major race or etc.

Thanks very much for doing this, really looking forward to seeing how it plays out through the season.

 

[ingsve]

Hi HK
Just wondering how often points updates will be posted here? Monthly or after every major race or etc.

Thanks very much for doing this, really looking forward to seeing how it plays out through the season.

I think the CQ excel file is updated weekly and updating the spreadsheet only involves copy pasting from one spreadsheet to another so it shouldn't be any problems updating weekly I think. Or at least in weeks where there has been major racing going on.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Hi HK
Just wondering how often points updates will be posted here? Monthly or after every major race or etc.

Thanks very much for doing this, really looking forward to seeing how it plays out through the season.

Like ingsve said really. CQ uploades a document 3-4 times a month and that's how often this spreadsheet will be updated

 

[skidmark]

Hey fellow game folks, just a heads-up in case some of you have not checked over your team in the spreadsheet - it might be worthwhile to see if there are any typos. I just say that because despite checking and double-checking the rider names on my team, I accidentally spelled Philip Deignan's name 'Phillip' (I mean really, 1 P Phil?) and it didn't pick up his points because it didn't fit the CQ name. Or perhaps I'm the only one who made an error. But I thought it'd be good to give a reminder.

 

[ingsve]

Hey fellow game folks, just a heads-up in case some of you have not checked over your team in the spreadsheet - it might be worthwhile to see if there are any typos. I just say that because despite checking and double-checking the rider names on my team, I accidentally spelled Philip Deignan's name 'Phillip' (I mean really, 1 P Phil?) and it didn't pick up his points because it didn't fit the CQ name. Or perhaps I'm the only one who made an error. But I thought it'd be good to give a reminder.

No, I think there are a few more. When I counted all the names I had them all grouped together so I could see when there were typos. I know some of the Ben Kings are a little off at least. A couple have him as Ben King (Aus) to differentiate from Ben King the american and that might cause problems. It might also be good to know which is the two ben kings people have chosen.

Then again when we get going it will be pretty easy to spot after a while that something is wrong if a perticular rider on a team is not getting their points added.

 

[nobilis]

No, I think there are a few more. When I counted all the names I had them all grouped together so I could see when there were typos. I know some of the Ben Kings are a little off at least. A couple have him as Ben King (Aus) to differentiate from Ben King the american and that might cause problems. It might also be good to know which is the two ben kings people have chosen.

Then again when we get going it will be pretty easy to spot after a while that something is wrong if a perticular rider on a team is not getting their points added.

I created pivot tables from the 87 sheets to summarize the teams like you did, but I found few discrepancies between my figures and yours. I can double-check and let you know.

 

[ingsve]

I created pivot tables from the 87 sheets to summarize the teams like you did, but I found few discrepancies between my figures and yours. I can double-check and let you know.

Ya, there shouldn't be many. Only a few more than the Deignan example which I also spotted.

 

[skidmark]

I picked Cunego too because he has the potential to double his total and as i said in the early pages of this thread, you should be aiming for a return of 2000 on eveyr 1000 spent.

But looking at your list where i think you spent too big was Vangarderen Ricco and most definately Kreuziger.

You will make up for that with Schumacher and Vandevelde though

Question is if it will be enough. I dont want to wish Vandevelde ill but given that i do feel i would have had him if i had time, im hoping CQ wise he doesnt go too strong. Maybe with Garmins team theyll just let him focus on the tour, get a top 10 and hell get 400 or so points so i just lose about 300. Same for Schumacher so i hope he has a bad year back from suspencion like they often do.

But looking at Ricco he costs 700 points. The key for many is what races they will ride. Winning the giro gets about 400 + 200 from stages and days in jerseys and waht not. Baring in mind winning the Giro is by no means a guarantee and one wonders what other races he will perform in. Basso won the Giro this year and only got 984. I suppose the best case scenario is for him to have a 2011 like Scarponi did 2010 and get top places in many races finishing with 1300 or so. So Ricco is a good pick too i guess. A risk but could pay off.

Van Garderen at 531. Whats he going to do to get him higher? Criterium and Turkey got him big points this year, but if he does improve, HTC might give him less turkey and more Cav lead outs. And hes only going to be 22-23. Improvements dont come huge in a year, they take time.
He did the best he could at the races he targeted and i will be surprised if he matches the very high total yet alone improves on it.

Finaly Kreuziger at 839, didnt have the best season but hes trying to go for gts and in previous years he got big points for winning and podiuming in switzerland a and switzerland b. Hes doing the giro, its going to knock him out and hes not going to get big points there. Hell be working for Vino in the Tour and maybe in the Ardennes. I can see him getting a same total as last year but definately not improving too much on it.

Oh, I love the pre-game hype...

Well, looking at your team, we obviously were thinking along the same lines for a number of guys. I think that Cunego and Boonen are as close to a slam dunk as possible for gaining a bunch of points next year, maybe not doubling but clearly this was an off year. Ballan too, but he's a bit more mercurial. Anyway, we seem to be thinking similarly on those lines.

I do want to acknowledge that the position you were put in was rather unfortunate, in that you were taking your time considering picks as most of us were, but then were put in the position of having to make up your mind quickly under the false pretense that we had a deadline of pretty much ASAP. So that sucks that you didn't have time to find all the deals, you and the few others that were in that position (I feel no sympathy for those who just sent in teams the first day without prompting, they lie in the beds they make). But I guess I acknowledged that about 50 pages ago too...

Anyway, to business. Ricco - I didn't want to pick Ricco, I thought 756 points was too good of a total to improve on. Then I looked at his results. He finished pretty much every race, and placed highly in most of them. That kind of consistency is hard to turn down. Granted, he could have been riding hard against secondary competition to prove a point, and perhaps he'd race/place highly less frequently in the highest echelon. But he seems to have an insatiable appetite for victory, so I'm willing to gamble that he might be a top 5 overall rider next year, being the featured rider on Vacansoleil for anything hilly, and them being a PT team. Basso may have only got x points winning the Giro, but Basso isn't as versatile as Ricco and not as much of a threat for the hilly 1-days or week-long stage races.

van Garderen - definite wild card, but he shouldn't do worse than last year barring injury, I think. With Rogers' departure, he becomes one of the strongest GC guys the GC-deficient HTC has (behind - possibly - Tony Martin and Peter Velits, and perhaps slightly above Siustou). So he should get plenty of opportunities in the week-long stage races, which is key. If he finished so high at the Dauphine, why could he not do the same at Pais Vasco or Paris-Nice or Eneco? He'll get more opportunities, in my mind, and he seems consistent. And if he's learned enough this year to excel in a GT (which is really my gamble), he could double his points. But yes, I will admit defeat if he falls short of this year.

Kreuziger - Another decision prompted by increased leadership. He can race all year, he's shown that in the past, and trading a team with Basso, Pelizotti and Nibali for one with just Vino is a step up for his chances, in my thinking. And I have my doubts that Vino will be able to challenge for the Tour, much as he'd like to. If he does, I could see Kreuz settling into a similar role as he did in 2009 when Nibali did well, and I see no reason he can't finish top 10 in the Tour. Oh, except for the Giro. He'll probably be dead from that. Hmm. You may be right. But it's not like he's a crappy climber, he's just no crazy lightweight like Rujano or Contador. Well, if he gets 1500 points, I reserve the right to be all smarmy about it like I had no doubt all along.

 

[The Hitch]

Oh, I love the pre-game hype...

Well, looking at your team, we obviously were thinking along the same lines for a number of guys. I think that Cunego and Boonen are as close to a slam dunk as possible for gaining a bunch of points next year, maybe not doubling but clearly this was an off year. Ballan too, but he's a bit more mercurial. Anyway, we seem to be thinking similarly on those lines.

I do want to acknowledge that the position you were put in was rather unfortunate, in that you were taking your time considering picks as most of us were, but then were put in the position of having to make up your mind quickly under the false pretense that we had a deadline of pretty much ASAP. So that sucks that you didn't have time to find all the deals, you and the few others that were in that position (I feel no sympathy for those who just sent in teams the first day without prompting, they lie in the beds they make). But I guess I acknowledged that about 50 pages ago too...

Its not to big a problem because if i do the best from those who sent their teams in earlier, ill just claim victory anyway And to be honest, i feel that i have ended up with quite a good team anyway. Big disapointment to miss out on Vandevelde and Schumacher and to have only 32 riders (efimkin) but i ended up with a lot of the other steals, probably more than anyone else who sent theirs in early. Im 4th on the 2009 ranking (well 5th, but The Amateur picked Valverde as a joke, so his tally is up 2000) so one of the favourites The Samu Sanchez of the CQ game.

Anyway, to business. .

Ah yes, business. Always business

Ricco - I didn't want to pick Ricco, I thought 756 points was too good of a total to improve on. Then I looked at his results. He finished pretty much every race, and placed highly in most of them. That kind of consistency is hard to turn down. Granted, he could have been riding hard against secondary competition to prove a point, and perhaps he'd race/place highly less frequently in the highest echelon. But he seems to have an insatiable appetite for victory, so I'm willing to gamble that he might be a top 5 overall rider next year, being the featured rider on Vacansoleil for anything hilly, and them being a PT team. Basso may have only got x points winning the Giro, but Basso isn't as versatile as Ricco and not as much of a threat for the hilly 1-days or week-long stage races.

I aknowledge Ricco has potential. I think behind Boonen and Cunego hes the 3rd best over 500 rider. He was the last person i took off from my initial spider diagram of famous riders with poor seasons last year. Ultimately I decided that spending 2192 on 3 riders was a mistake. That severly lowers your average per rider for the rest. from 227 per rider to 170.

But Ricco can double his score no doubt. Actually i see him likely to have a Michelle Scarponi 2010 season and Scarponi got 1353 so thats almost double. Ricco probably wont have as good a Tireno Adriatico though, might make up for that elsewhere and probably wont get a 2nd in Lombardy. So i say hell probably get slightly less. 1200 Range. Ingsve thinks 1100. Either way its a good buy who gets big points but like i said, 2192 is too much to spend on 3 riders, and both me and ingsve predict bigger increases for CUnego and Boonen.

van Garderen - definite wild card, but he shouldn't do worse than last year barring injury, I think. With Rogers' departure, he becomes one of the strongest GC guys the GC-deficient HTC has (behind - possibly - Tony Martin and Peter Velits, and perhaps slightly above Siustou). So he should get plenty of opportunities in the week-long stage races, which is key. If he finished so high at the Dauphine, why could he not do the same at Pais Vasco or Paris-Nice or Eneco? He'll get more opportunities, in my mind, and he seems consistent. And if he's learned enough this year to excel in a GT (which is really my gamble), he could double his points. But yes, I will admit defeat if he falls short of this year.

But at 531 Van Garderen is another expensive buy. That becomes 2723 for 4 riders. If he excels in a gt hell lose points. Because presumably you mean top 10 not contend. You get 200 points for coming 8th in the Tour. 180 for the Giro or Vuelta. If he does either i dont see him putting in those top Dauphine performances as well. And i dont think he can do a Pais Vasco podium because there your Gesinks, Samu Sanchez's and Joaquim Rodriguez's are on form. At the Dauphine they are training. (as seen by Samus 18th, Menchovs 25th and Contador, having won the 3 other stage races he did in 2010, coming 2nd to Janez).

But i dont think hell excel at gts. Ill think hell have a similar season. That means 531 on a net gain of 0. Actually he might not get so many podiums.

Kreuziger - Another decision prompted by increased leadership. He can race all year, he's shown that in the past, and trading a team with Basso, Pelizotti and Nibali for one with just Vino is a step up for his chances, in my thinking. And I have my doubts that Vino will be able to challenge for the Tour, much as he'd like to. If he does, I could see Kreuz settling into a similar role as he did in 2009 when Nibali did well, and I see no reason he can't finish top 10 in the Tour. Oh, except for the Giro. He'll probably be dead from that. Hmm. You may be right. But it's not like he's a crappy climber, he's just no crazy lightweight like Rujano or Contador. Well, if he gets 1500 points, I reserve the right to be all smarmy about it like I had no doubt all along

Kreuziger 839, grossly overpriced. Like ill said hell break even but not much more. And if youve already spent 2723 on 3 riders then add Kreuzigers whopping ammount and you have 3562. Your average has now shrunk to 135 per rider for the remainder. Add Gusev at 443 and you have 4005, well over half your total on 5 riders.

And Kreuziger has nowhere near the potential for gains as Ricco Boonen or Cunego. Dont get me wrong, i like him, and want him to become a gc guy. I defended him with Ryagas in August on some thread asking if he has not improved enough since 23 yo.

But half the trick with riders on this game is to see what races theyll choose. Kreuziger gets points on being on Astana which has few leaders. But he loses points on the repeated statements saying hell do the Giro, then work for Vino at the Tour. That sounds to me like Basso schedule and Basso got 984 points. Incidentaly thats less than Michael Rogers and Giovani Visconti neither of whom had as succesful a season as him.

Only that Kreuziger is no Basso, so he wont be getting that many points from the Giro, and hell be domestiquing at the Tour. He might do Ardennes and Paris Nice, and should improve on his totals from last year in both, but it wont be enough in the end to justify 839 big ones, imo.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Yes but we were responding to posts saying that Gesink is a great pick competition wise and that he can get +40%, which i think is highly unlikely.

Im not doubting his ability to improve, im doubting his ability to be on peak form all year, defend all his winnings and get a lot more, and come top 3 overall in CQ rankings (where he will be if he has that season).

Bare in mind also that if he were to improve too much, his cq rankings might suffer as he might win the tour and ease up in other races.

Gesink's consistency is probably his biggest strength tho. He is unlike menchov in this regard, and more like evans, valverde etc.. the ability to be at the very least competitive in almost every race they ride. Barring injuries next year (which is a guarantee with good ol' gesink) he should be able to improve on this year. 40% increase maybe not. I didn't pick him cause I thought he was a great pick up, so I understand your meaning. But Imo he should be good for 1500-2000 points, time will tell tho.

Regarding ricco, I will be very very surprised if cunego gets more points then him. For (roughly) 700 points, I think ricco is an excellent pick. As for cunego, he is one of my favorite riders, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him have a similar season to this year.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Regarding misspellings: I think I have caught if not all then almost everyone so that shouldn't be a problem. And if some have gone unnoticed they will certainly be spotted during the season.

I had to rename the australian Benjamin King to KING Benjaming Aus because otherwise it would be impossible to distinct between him and the american Ben King.

 

[bicing]

What if this game had a sub-forum? So we could split the thread into different topics: Problems/Admin, Rules, 2011 season, Trash talk. Would be easier to follow.

 

[auscyclefan94]

It all starts tommorow with the New Zealand TT Champs. Anyone got some Kiwi riders?

 

[Ferminal]

Jack Bauer is in a few teams, maybe he can go B2B

 

[Eric8-A]

How will we know of our team progress?

 

[Hugo Koblet]

How will we know of our team progress?

Whenever CQranking.com updates their download section, I will download the updated points sheet, load it into the spreadsheet with all our teams. The colomn "2011 Points" will automatically update and then I will upload the updated spreadsheet.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Jack Bauer is in a few teams, maybe he can go B2B

He's the RR champion - not the ITT champion

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

What if this game had a sub-forum? So we could split the thread into different topics: Problems/Admin, Rules, 2011 season, Trash talk. Would be easier to follow.

really not a bad idea, if the admin staff would be up for it.

 

[Ferminal]

He's the RR champion - not the ITT champion

Isn't the RR on this weekend too?